The Battle to Trademark the KitKat Shape

Cadbury and Nestle are currently engaged in a war of words and shapes in the EU courts, where Cadbury is fighting an attempt by Nestle to trademark the trapezoid chocolate finger shape of the KitKat bar.

The European Union Court of Justice is being asked to rule on the case, which dates back to 2010 when Nestle first tried to register the shape of the KitKat's chocolate tendrils as a trademark. Nestle's lawyer says the bar is "highly recognizable and much loved" in the UK, although he didn't say whether we'd stop eating them all the time were they to be made in tube, cylinder, spiral or square shapes instead.

It's hard to see why Cadbury would want to stop Nestle from trademarking the shape of a KitKat, as we can't think of any similar rectangular fingered products made by Cadbury. It all seems to be a tit-for-tat war over minor details in the retail world, one that's a continuation from a battle that ended in 2013 --when Cadbury was denied a trademark over the use of the colour purple to sell its lumps of chocolate thanks, again, to the intervention of Nestle's chocolate-fingered lawyers. [Bloomberg]